THE NEWFANGLERS

(2006)
MUSIC ::: COUNTRY ::: GRAM

The Newfanglers are a collective of songwriters and musicians from Southeast Georgia who came together in October 2003 to create Blood in the Pines: The Story of Hollis Sheppard. Centered around Waycross songwriters Sean Clark, Dave Griffin and Gram Griffin, the project transformed an old regional story of feuding families, ass-whippings, wife-beatings and murder into an original narrative told through song. This was not merely a band making an album. It was a community excavating one of its own legends.

The songwriting and recording became an intensive group effort, drawing upon guest singers, musicians and guitar slingers—some local, others legendary. Most remarkable was the participation of Don Helms, the steel guitarist whose unmistakable sound had accompanied Hank Williams as a member of the Drifting Cowboys. Helms played on several tracks, connecting the album’s contemporary Southeast Georgia voices directly to the formative language of country music. His steel did not serve as decoration; it gave the blood-soaked Hollis Sheppard story the sound of history remembering itself.

Released in 2007, Blood in the Pines developed an enduring following among alt-country listeners around the world. It also became a foundational document of the modern Waycross music community—a place where history, folklore and lived experience continually pass from one circle of musicians to another. Sean Clark and the Griffin family would carry that spirit through the Gram Parsons Guitar Pull and into the swampy-tonk blues of the Pine Box Dwellers. The Newfanglers did not revive an old story. They proved it was still alive.